Eclipse of Procyon

by Mark R. Healy

Genres: Hard Science Fiction; Space Exploration; Colonization

Synopsis

"The characters pop off the page. The action is electric. Mark R. Healy is a new voice in sci-fi that's worth keeping an eye on!" - Rhett C. Bruno, author of Titanfall and The Circuit.

The stunning sequel to Dawn of Procyon
The human race is at war.
The ruthless alien war-species, the Argoni, are marshalling a massive force under the surface of Procyon One in preparation for an onslaught that could wipe out every human on the planet.
In the midst of the interstellar conflict, mechanics Landry Stanton and Cait Underwood carry this terrible secret across the barren wasteland with no way of contacting home.
While the same alien armor keeping Landry alive slowly takes over his mind, Landry and Cait will be forced to outwit their alien pursuers in a last ditch attempt to save their own lives and warn the outpost of the impending invasion.

 

Release date: February 8, 2017

Publisher: Future House Publishing

Print pages: 356

Sample

PSD 29-214: 0816 hours

Cait stomped on the pedal, and the mudhopper slid sideways as its tires fought to gain purchase on the steep dirt wall of the gully. She gritted her teeth and held the wheel firm, and after a moment the treads bit deep into the sand. The buggy lurched upward and out of the ditch, its front wheels spinning in the air, and for a moment there was nothing to see through the windshield but red sky. Then the mudhopper crashed back down and began to bump and thud its way across the rock-strewn terrain once more.

Beside her, Landry’s unconscious body lolled in the passenger seat, scraping awkwardly against the doorframe. He still looked a mess, his skin pale and slick from fever, and the wound on his arm had opened up again. Blood covered the seat and the cabin floor, and the sight of it was enough to make Cait feel sick to her stomach.

She slammed on the brakes, and the mudhopper responded quickly, sliding to a halt and sending a plume of coppery dust scattering in the morning sunlight. She reached over and carefully pulled Landry upright again, securing him as best she could back under the seat harness.

As she stared at his gaunt face, she realized that she could no longer deny the truth.

Landry was dying right before her eyes.

He’s not going to make it back to the outpost, she thought. Not a chance.

She reached into the back seat and pulled out the first aid kit again, her mind whirring. The last fifteen minutes had been a blur, and she was still trying to make sense of everything that had happened. When she’d driven away from Proc-One’s outpost in the dim hours before dawn, she hadn’t expected to find much out at the array tower. It had been almost a day since Landry’s distress signal, and she’d figured that both he and his pilot would most likely be dead by the time she got there.

At most, she imagined that she might find them clinging to the wreck of their scout with an incredible story to tell.

Instead, she’d found Landry running across the sands of Proc-One’s wasteland—without an EVA suit, of all things—and with a mysterious black substance clinging to his body. By the time she’d pulled him inside, he’d been half dead.

Maybe a little more than half, come to think of it, she thought.

In the few moments he’d been conscious, he’d been babbling about an impending Argoni attack. Saying that the aliens were coming. That all of them were coming. In fact, he’d seemed scared out of his wits, pushing away her attempts to apply first aid, demanding that she simply drive, get the two of them out of there as quickly as possible.

Cait had to admit that his panic had infected her as well. Landry was generally a pretty calm and collected kind of guy, not the sort who would succumb to hysteria unnecessarily. Seeing the look on his face had frightened her in a way that talk of Argoni and invasions could not.

So she’d done as he’d asked. She’d stepped on the pedal and sent the mudhopper rolling across the planet’s surface, all too aware that danger to the outpost meant danger to Fraxa as well. The girl’s face loomed in Cait’s vision, urging her onward as she sped across the terrain. Although she had only known Fraxa for a day or two, she couldn’t deny that a bond had formed between the two of them.

She’s a fighter, just like me. But there’s no one else on her side.

Despite the urge to keep going, Cait had reached a point where she could no longer ignore what was happening to Landry. She was no Medic, but his plight was obvious nonetheless. She knew that she had to apply some basic first aid to stop the flow of blood, regardless of Fraxa, the Argoni, or anything else. Landry would surely slip away if Cait didn’t help him, and there was no way she was going to let the guy die right here in the mudhopper. Not after everything she’d gone through to rescue him.

She rummaged through the first aid kit and took out a container of hydrogen peroxide, then reached across Landry and gently drew his arm toward her. The fact that she was still inside her EVA suit made maneuvering inside the cabin difficult, and as she moved, the blanket with which she’d attempted to cover Landry slipped down. His torso was bare, and she winced as she noted the nicks and raw patches of skin that covered his body. There probably wasn’t a lot she could do with those, she figured. Not out here.

Just patch up the worst parts. Stop the bleeding.

She eased him forward and gave him a quick inspection. It became quickly apparent that the arm was the major concern. There were several open wounds between his elbow and wrist, oozing blood. If she could patch those up, he might have a chance of pulling through.

Dabbing away some of the blood, she irrigated the wounds with the peroxide as best she could. The damage seemed to have come from multiple sources. There were thin, stabbing-type punctures, as well as patches of disfigured flesh that almost looked like acid wounds. Cait remembered an occasion at the workshop last year when one of the other Optechs, Stillman, had gotten himself splashed with battery acid from a cracked transport assembly. The wounds had looked very similar to these.

Worst of all, there was a patch of blackened, necrotic skin on Landry’s wrist, its edges raised and mottled red. It almost looked like a wad of dead flesh that had been sewn onto his wrist. As she looked closer she could see that spidery black veins were emanating from the patch, creeping up his arm like tentacles.

Cait’s skin crawled just looking at it.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Landry had been up to out there before she’d found him.

What could possibly have caused something like this?

Trying to ignore the implications of that question, she concentrated on her work. She took a handful of adhesive strips from the first aid kit and began to pull them apart, then thought better of it. Instead, she dug through the mudhopper’s onboard tool kit and snatched out a tube of quick-seal glue—something she used on a daily basis in the workshop—and rested Landry’s injured arm on his chest. With her free hand, she pinched together the first cut on his forearm and applied the glue in one fluid motion.

Just like sealing a joint in a hydraulic hose, that’s all, she told herself, trying to ignore the squeamishness that was growing within her at the sight of so much blood.

She moved onto the next wound, and by that time Landry had begun to stir. He moaned and groggily moved his head as he tried to open his eyes.

“Landry, hold still,” she said. “I’m trying to patch you up here—”

He struggled and moaned some more, then cried out suddenly and tried to crawl away from her. “Please, stop!” he screamed. “No more!”

Cait held up her hands soothingly. “Landry! It’s me, Cait. You’re safe.”

His eyes focused on her then, and he blinked, still confused. His head jerked back and forth in alarm as he took in the mudhopper’s console, Cait’s EVA suit, and finally her face.

Their eyes met, and she saw the terror within him slowly begin to slip away. He visibly relaxed, letting out a shaky breath.

“Ugh,” he groaned, rubbing at his face with shaky fingers. “I thought I was there again . . . down there.”

“Down where?” she prompted.

He did not answer, instead leaning forward to stare up into the sky, blinking against the brightness.

“What are you looking for, Landry?”

His eyes lost focus and his voice dropped to a whisper. “The eclipse.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

He drew back and shuddered. “Ahh,” he groaned miserably. He glanced down at his arm. “This kills.” His eyes sharpened, the pain seeming to bring him back to reality.

“I know, I know. I’m trying to patch you up. It’s not like I have an Infirmary handy.”

“What is this?” he groaned, rubbing at the glue on his arm.

“Don’t touch that!” Cait said, pulling his hand away. “I used some adhesive on those gashes in your arm.”

“Adhesive? What am I, a model airplane?”

“Landry,” Cait said, leaning across to gain his attention, “tell me what happened to you.”

He coughed weakly. “Not now.”

“What about your pilot, Gus? Before you passed out you said he was dead.”

“He is dead.”

“What happened to him?”

“Toad got him. Ripped him apart.” Something seemed to occur to him, and he opened his eyes and peered out of the windshield again, where curls of dust still danced across the hood of the mudhopper. “Are we here? Did we make it to the outpost?”

“No, not yet—”

“Where are we?” he asked glancing through the side windows in agitation, suddenly as lucid as if he’d been slapped across the cheek. “I can’t see anything out there.”

“We’re a few minutes west of the position where I first found you.”

Landry stared at her, incredulous. “A few minutes? I told you to drive as fast as you could—”

“Listen to me, Landry. You’re dying,” Cait said vehemently. “Do you get that? You’re losing too much blood.”

“Fix me up at the outpost—”

“I don’t know if you’re even going to make it that far.” She placed a hand firmly on his chest. “Now, sit still and let me patch you up before you bleed out. After that, I’ll do my best to set a new speed record between here and the outpost. Deal?”

He looked as though he might argue the point, but a moment later he slumped backward. “Deal.”

Cait finished gluing the last of Landry’s cuts, then slipped a cartridge of antibiotics into the applicator and jabbed a clear patch of skin near the wound.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened now? What were you doing out here?”

Landry continued to stare out the window warily as she worked on him. “Gus and I took one of the scouts out here to bring back a storage module, if you can believe that.”

“A storage module?”

“Yeah. He thought he was going to lose his job because he left it out here. I figured I’d help him out.”

“And then what happened?”

“Something hit the scout as we went past the array tower. Turned out to be an Argoni dogfighter that we caught by surprise. The impact cracked the Seagull’s hull, broke her in half as she was falling out of the sky. I was knocked unconscious when we hit the dirt, and when I came to, Gus was dead. Looked like he’d been attacked by something after he crawled away from the crash.”

“Attacked by what?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Guess.”

Cait began to bandage Landry’s arm, watching him skeptically. “Argoni wandering around out here? How is that possible? There should be none left on this entire rock.”

He turned back to her. “That’s why I’m telling you we need to get out of here. They’ve been fooling us all these years, building right under our noses.”

“Building what?”

He shrugged. “Hives, I guess you’d call them. Structures that are invisible to ground penetrating radar.”

Cait regarded him uncertainly, not knowing whether he had truly experienced something incredible, or if he had simply lost his mind. Could this really be true? Had Landry—a simple Optech—uncovered a secret that even the United Earth Marines didn’t know about?

Surely someone would have figured this out in the seventeen years since the war had begun, she thought.

“How do you know all of this?” Cait asked.

That look of hollowness she’d seen earlier settled deep within his eyes once more. “Because I was captured and taken down there.” He squeezed his eyes shut, as if he’d been assaulted by a sudden headache, then began to push her away again. “That’s enough patching,” he gasped. “I’ll be okay. Right now, you need to drive. We need to get back before it’s too late.”

Cait couldn’t help but feel dubious about his story. Was it possible that Landry had been taken inside some sort of alien hive and lived to tell the tale? Was he right about a whole army of those things heading toward the outpost?

That raised another unsettling question in her mind. If this was true, and if the Argoni were mounting an assault, what was going to become of Fraxa? What was going to happen to the little girl who was, right now, sitting alone in the Infirmary with no one to look after her?

Cait had promised Fraxa that she would be there for her. But if the Argoni attacked the outpost before Cait could get back . . .

A horrible thought occurred to her.

When I left the outpost this morning, I had the choice of staying with Fraxa or coming out here into the wilderness to search for Landry.

Did I save the wrong person?

She tried to push that notion from her mind as she wrapped a bandage around Landry’s arm. This was no time to be second-guessing her decisions. She worked quickly, then gave the bandage a final inspection. She was still not satisfied that she had finished the job properly, but she figured that she had done enough for now. With the work she’d done, the blood loss would be kept to a minimum.

She started the mudhopper again and revved the engine.

She glanced at Landry, who had partially curled himself up in his seat, his skin pale and clammy. “Can you at least tell me what we’re running from?” she asked.

“I’ve seen things, okay?” he said sharply, his voice cracking from the effort. He was evidently growing tired of her questioning. “Things I shouldn’t have. I’m still trying to figure out what they mean—”

“What things?”

“All I know is that we need to warn the UEM before they leave tomorrow. We have to do something before the eclipse gets here.”

“You said something before about an ‘eclipse’? What eclipse? Why is it so important?”

Landry drew the blanket over his chest again and settled down into his seat as the mudhopper began to pick up speed. “I don’t know exactly, but I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in my head.”

“What happens when it comes?”

He craned his neck, wincing as he looked out through the windshield into the sky yet again.

“We all die.”

PSD 29-214: 0547 hours

Evan Cole sat on the edge of his bed, scrubbing at his brow as he tried to clear his head. The clock on the wall of his apartment was telling him that it was early, that he still had time to rest.

But that wasn’t going to happen. He’d barely slept a wink all night.

Life had been like that lately. He wasn’t sure what was causing it, this restlessness that left him tossing and turning by night and irritable by day.

Maybe it was the war, the crushing weight of the conflict that was bearing down on him, creating this inner turmoil that he couldn’t seem to cast aside.

He got up, trying to shake off his mood.

A brew. That might help.

He padded over to the instant coffee machine and turned it on. A red light flickered in the gloom, and he saw a vague reflection of himself in the mottled stainless steel façade: his dark and normally neatly-combed hair mussed and disheveled. As the appliance began to purr, Cole heard movement behind him and turned to see Jessie stirring under the sheet.

“Mornin’, Marshal,” she said, her voice scratchy with sleep.

“Morning.”

Jessie caught sight of the clock. “Wow. Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Not lately.”

With long, lustrous black hair and pale skin like alabaster, she was easy to watch.

“Pour one for me, huh?” she said.

“Sure.”

She got up and finished getting dressed, then began to stroll across the room. “I like your place. More spacious than most of the apartments around here.”

Cole glanced around. The apartment was barely five by five meters, small by Earth standards, but twice the space of most dwellings on Proc-One.

“Just one of the many perks of being Marshal, I guess,” he said, voice full of irony. He handed her a lukewarm mug of coffee and then poured one for himself.

“Could be worse. At least you’re better off than most of the grunts on this level. Or the pit dwellers. I mean, seriously. They have to sleep in a hole in the ground.”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t get down to the Mines much.”

Jessie took a sip from the mug, and he could tell she was smiling even though he could only see her eyes over the rim. “Yeah,” she said, lowering the mug again. “I heard you aren’t well liked down there.”

“Something like that.”

Jessie turned away from him, stepping languidly across the carpet to where several model spacecraft sat on the shelf. She picked one up and eyed it curiously.

“Why do you keep these toys sitting around, anyway?”

“They’re not toys. They’re scale models of actual military and civilian spacecraft.”

“Yeah, like I said. Toys.”

Cole sighed patiently. “These babies are the machines that protect us from the Argoni invasion. Show some respect, kiddo.”

“You don’t say?” Jessie muttered, placing the model down again. She already sounded bored.

“They’re really amazing pieces of engineering,” Cole enthused, picking the model up again for her to see. “This one is a Blackwing Raven. It’s used in space combat. Dogfighting.” He lifted it and allowed the light to glint off the nacelle. “Actually, one of these has enough firepower—”

“Yeah, I’m sure I’ve seen them around,” she said dismissively, turning away.

“Oh, no. You wouldn’t have seen them around here. This ship isn’t built to fly in atmosphere. That was probably its sister ship, the Silverwing Raven. See, the design of a fighter built to fly in atmosphere is completely different to one fit for maneuvering in space. It’s a common misconception. The aerodynamics, you see—”

“Uh-huh,” Jessie said, plonking herself back down on the edge of the bed. “And how do you know so much about this space stuff, Marshal Evan Cole? You’re just a lawman.”

Cole felt his cheeks flush. “I just know it. I’ve read about it.”

“Never picked you for the intellectual type,” she teased.

“I’ll try not to take that as an insult.” At that moment, Cole’s omni-device lit up on the bench. He frowned, wondering who would be bothering him at this hour. “Uh, just a minute,” he said to Jessie, then answered the call. “Hello?”

“Marshal Cole, this is Colonel Streak,” the voice on the other end said.

“Colonel? What’s—?”

“The Admiral has called a meeting, effective immediately. Your attendance is required.”

Cole glanced at the clock. “Now? Does he know what—?”

“You have fifteen minutes. Don’t be late.”

The call terminated, and Cole could only stare at the omni-device, nonplussed.

“Duty calls, huh?” Jessie said, getting up.

“I guess so.” He gestured to the bed. “Just hang out for a bit, make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back soon.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, placing the coffee on the counter. “I was going to leave anyway.”

“Always in a hurry to get out of here, huh?” he said, more sharply than he’d intended.

A look of irritation flashed across her face. “Yeah. I guess.”

He reached out and caught her wrist as she turned to leave.

She scowled disapprovingly at him. “Hey! What gives?”

“Just wait a second. I uh . . . I have something to ask.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, right. Here we go.”

“You haven’t even heard what I have to say.”

“So say it.”

He took a moment, considering his response. “I want you to think about staying here full time. I want you to move in.”

She sighed. “How did I know this was coming?”

“Don’t just shrug me off like that—”

“Get off,” she said, wrenching her wrist free. “You’re getting too possessive, Evan. I told you that last time. It’s creepy.”

“How is this creepy? We’re two people who care for each other—”

“Are we?” She stood, hands on hips, her eyes flashing. “Maybe you should have asked my opinion about that before you started making assumptions.”

He stared at her, flabbergasted. “Jessie, what’s the matter with you?”

She sighed impatiently. “Look, Evan. You’re a nice enough guy. Sure, we’ve had some fun, but this was never serious. Not for me.”

“Is there someone else? Is that it?”

Jessie turned to gather her things. “I’m leaving, Evan. I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back.”

He stepped forward and reached for her arm, but she evaded his grasp. “Jessie, stop. You should take some time to think this through.”

“No thanks,” she said, snatching up her black cotton scarf from the floor and slipping it over her neck. “Just leave me alone, will you?”

“What? Why?”

She turned on him, furious. “Because I don’t want to be stuck with the rent-a-cop from some backwater outpost in the middle of nowhere, okay?”

Cole reeled backward as if he’d been physically struck. In that moment, he really did feel as though he’d been kicked in the stomach. To hear those words tumble from her mouth was nothing short of mortifying.

Jessie watched him for a moment, and then the fire went out of her eyes. Her expression softened, and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“Look, Evan. I’m sorry—”

“Get out,” Cole said quietly, his body rigid, his hands clenched at his side.

“I shouldn’t have said that—”

“Get out. Right now.”

Jessie stood for a moment longer, then scooped up her stilettos and yanked open the door. She left without another word. Cole stood watching her go, too shocked and hurt to even think straight.

Rent-a-cop? Is that how she really thinks of me?

Cole suddenly wished that he could erase everything that had happened since he’d awoken, that he could somehow go back in time and start over with Jessie. Try another approach that didn’t end in a shuttle wreck.

Or maybe I should just go back to bed and lie there for the rest of the day. That way I won’t have to face whatever the world has in store.

But the colonel was waiting for him. He had to put Jessie behind him and go do his job.

Taking a shirt from the closet, he began to get dressed.

PSD 29-214: 0825 hours

Landry lapsed in and out of consciousness as they drove across the bumpy terrain, and despite the first aid Cait had applied, his condition still appeared to be in a steep decline. His skin had become alarmingly white, almost the color of the bandages that were wrapped around his arm. Though Cait kept telling herself that she had enough time to get him home, a little voice in the back of her mind had begun to tell her the opposite.

You’ve got a four, maybe five-hour drive ahead of you. He doesn’t look like he’ll last even half of that.

As she drove, she found herself continually glancing across at him, taking note of his shallow breathing, the darkening circles under his eyes. The way he moved his arms under the blanket. Her inattention to the view through the windscreen almost caused her to slam into boulders more than once, so in the end she decided to focus on the landscape in front of her. It wasn’t doing her any good in any case, she figured. Whether she sat there watching him or not, the outcome was still going to be the same. He was going to die, or he wasn’t. She’d already done what she could to stabilize his condition. Now it was up to him.

In the intervening silence, she realized that she should try calling the outpost again. She’d already tried a couple of times when she’d first located Landry, during that mad flight from the array tower, but there had been no response. After that she’d become preoccupied with driving and with Landry’s condition, and the idea of contacting the outpost had slipped from her mind. It really was the best option available to her, since the emergency crews could have a med-ship sent to their location within a matter of minutes.

She reached for the comms panel on the mudhopper’s console, chiding herself for not calling sooner. In truth, she’d been in somewhat of a panic since finding Landry. She’d been more concerned about getting out of the area, since Landry seemed to think they would die if the mudhopper’s wheels stopped turning even for a moment, and she had to admit that his anxiety had affected her.

She hadn’t kept a clear head under pressure, and that aggravated her. She hated not being in control of the situation.

Tapping angrily on the panel, she brought the comms online as she muttered admonitions under her breath. The system displayed a rotating wheel as the process initiated, but a moment later an error appeared: Peer link failed. Retrying in 10 seconds.

She stared at the console. That’s weird, she thought. The emergency comms should be open at all times.

Cait frowned and looked about. They were currently driving through a slight depression in the landscape, and she supposed that the surrounding landmass might have been causing interference with the signal. She turned the wheel slightly and directed the mudhopper onto a rise that led to higher ground. They reached the peak a short time later, and she brought the vehicle to a halt so that she could turn her attention more fully to the comms.

The error had not changed: Peer link failed. Retrying in 10 seconds. She waited for it to retry once more, but when it did, the message persisted.

Baffled, she glanced out through the windshield. In the back of her mind, she wondered about the fact that she had left the outpost illegally, taking the mudhopper without authorization during a lockdown. Had her comms been blacklisted somehow? Or was Outpost Control perhaps choosing to ignore the transmission? She hadn’t heard of that happening before, but she wasn’t privy to all of the decisions that were made in OC. There was enough elevation from this position to get a clear signal, no doubt about it. There should be no technical reason why contact wouldn’t be established. So what could be—?

“You’ve stopped again.”

She glanced over in surprise to see Landry slumped in his seat, watching her through half-lidded eyes. “Oh. I thought you were taking a nap.”

“Why are we stopped again?”

Cait opened the menu on the comms console and began to flick through the settings. “Well, it’s a nice day for sightseeing.”

He glanced down to where she was fiddling with the comms. “We should have seen them by now.”

“Seen who?”

“The UEM.” He leaned forward weakly and looked out into the heavens again. “The sky should be full of Ravens by now, headed out to wipe out that hive.”

“Just sit back, Landry. You’re delirious.”

Landry watched her carefully. “You called them already, didn’t you? You raised the alarm?”

Cait did not return his gaze, preferring to watch the comms panel instead. “I’m still trying to get hold of them.”

His eyes widened. “You mean they don’t know?”

“Know what, Landry? That some delirious Optech thinks he found something that has never been documented—”

“I did find something!”

“—in the entire history of the Argoni war? What am I supposed to tell them?”

“The truth.”

“All I know is that I. . .